David Lowery started the year in the headlines for leading one of two class-action lawsuits against Spotify over mechanical licensing. They have since combined with the other lawsuit taking prominence.

That has left Lowery free to continue with touring life with his two bands, Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, but through his activism and The Trichordist blog, he remains closely engaged with the issues that sparked those lawsuits – and with the wider questions of fair streaming royalties.

“It’s pretty clear that the courts are going to do something with this: there’s going to be some sort of action. The NOI system for licensing streaming mechanicals in the United States is essentially broken. If we want to have streaming services that have more than a few million tracks on them, we can’t have that system,” says Lowery.